Westwood railway station was situated on the
South Yorkshire Railway
The South Yorkshire Railway was a railway company with lines in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England.
Initially promoted as the South Yorkshire Coal Railway in 1845, the railway was enabled by an act of 1847 as the South Yorkshire Doncaster and ...
's Blackburn Valley line between and . The station served an area of few houses apart from two rows of miners' cottages known as "Westwood Row". The nearest settlement was at
High Green
High Green is the northernmost suburb of Sheffield, England, located about 8 miles from the city centre. It is found to the north of Chapeltown, South Yorkshire, Chapeltown and is served by buses; the nearest rail station is in Chapeltown rai ...
, just over away. Tankersley colliery was north of the station and was connected to the railway line by an industrial spur. Another spur left the line in Westwood station and led via a switchback to Thorncliffe Iron Works and Thorncliffe Colliery.
[
The original Westwood station, set in a wooded area, was opened on 4 September 1854 on a single line to the north of the level crossing. When the line was doubled in 1876 the station was staggered around the level crossing, reopening on 9 October of that year, with its main buildings, brick built and similar to other on the line, on the Sheffield-bound platform.
Westwood signal box, a tall M.S.& L.R. hipped-roof type, was on the Barnsley-bound side of the line. From 1876, when Absolute Block Working was introduced on the line, a second signal box was built to control the entry to Newbegin Colliery. Westwood signal box was closed in 1933 and replaced by a 6 lever ground frame to control the sidings and crossing gate locks. The control of its signals passed to Newbegin signal box.
Although passengers were sparse, the station was a second point for dealing with the traffic generated by ]Newton, Chambers & Company
Newton, Chambers & Co. was one of England's largest industrial companies. It was founded in 1789 by George Newton and Thomas Chambers.
History
George Newton and Thomas Chambers were partners in the Phoenix foundry at Snow Hill, Sheffield an ...
. That company's locomotive fleet used the line between here and Chapeltown in order to move between the two sites.
The station was closed on 28 October 1940. Heavily overgrown sections of the level crossing platform and buildings are still visible to the naked eye.
Westwood station was one of three stations built to serve the High Green and Chapeltown area to date.
Route
References
* "The South Yorkshire Railway", D. L. Franks, Turntable Enterprises, 1971.